Today in the 13th trial day it was the turn of the prosecutor to respond to request of the defense for dismissal of the trial (as argued by them on March 14th). The prosecutor’s argument was precise, long winded and very technical. That made this trial day hard to follow for a lay person. But still this was not a day without strange incidents.

In his plea the prosecutor made the remarkable claim that in Wilders his Fitna movie a page was churned out of the Koran. But anybody who has seen Fitna knows there is no such scene in the movie.

It was not Wilders lawyer who responded to this false claim, but Wilders himself. At the end of this session he was allowed to make a statement and Wilders then told the court the prosecution should hold on to the facts and he told the court there was no scene in Fitna were a page was churned out of the Koran. Wilders wondered if the prosecution was already trying to anticipate of what would be in the follow up: Fitna 2. This can best be seen as a reference to the fact that Dutch government officials also made similar wild claims before he released Fitna. Salient detail: prosecutor Velleman was also part of the interdepartmental cartoon censoring working group and it was Velleman who lead the arrest by SWAT team of a Dutch cartoonist (but never started a trial). It is yet unknown to the general public what Velleman’s role was around the government responses around the time Fitna was to be released.

Hearing about the false claims of the prosecution the judge then asked the prosecution for a response. The prosecution quickly agreed and said Mr. Wilders was right, but that the film was indeed suggesting such a thing. The judge then said it was cleared up and continued and ended the trial day.

Next trial day will be March 30th when the court will rule if this trial can continue or will be dismissed.